Computer (not a computer)

[mmcirvin]

I remember owning one of these "digital computer kits" from Radio Shack. Even as a child, I could tell that its billing as a digital computer was an exaggeration. It didn't have any active components; it was basically a wire-switches-to-lightbulbs-in-a-complicated-way kit, and you could sort of do things that vaguely resembled logic, with inserts over the lightbulbs with stuff written on them. You could build things that were more like real logic circuits with the generalized electronics kits.

Comments

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I remember owning one of those generalized electronics kits. I didn't learn all that much; I just hooked them up by the numbers, tried to play with the 7-segment LED, and hooked a few of the resistors up to way too many batteries until they exploded.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think the single most educational thing in the whole kit I had was the electromechanical relay. I was fascinated by that thing, in part because I could clearly see how it worked (it had a clear plastic housing) and in part because I could sort of see how, if you had enough of those, you could make a logic circuit just out of relays and calculate anything. So I could to some extent see the link from first principles to computation in my head. Of course I knew that modern computers are not made of electromechanical relays, but I also knew that some early ones were and that solid-state devices were made to function similarly.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

In the 1950s, I owned something similar sold by Edmund Scientific: Brainiac, if I recall correctly. I never finished putting it together.

It could be hardwired to add, or to subtract, or multiply, or divide -- but not to do more than one of those.

It could also be used to compose music.

[doctroid.livejournal.com]

This?

I still have

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

an old "build your own digital computer" book with paper-clip patch panels and hand-cut drum memory templates that I occasionally take out and try to figure out what the hell the author was up to. I think it may have been one of the reasons I was so terrified of computers in college.